Click here. Wow. The most amazing thing about this video is how incredibly calm people are with swarms of bees flying around everywhere. As a person with an allergy to bees I find this positively terrifying!

Reminds me of the other day when I was golfing with son Ben at a local par-3 course. For some reason I allowed myself to get a bit too into the moment as I stood over a short, 6 foot birdie putt. The putt was headed right for the hole until it hit a random patch of dirt, leading to a lip-out. I said “Man” with more volume behind it than the situation deserved. Son Ben looked up at me and said “but that was a nice try daddy”. I quickly snapped out of my ridiculous focus on score, joining Ben and his excitement over a giant puddle on the next hole.

Last night, at some point, I broke my toe. During the day I was running around kicking a ball with my son. There wasn’t the slightest indication that the 2nd toe on my right foot would soon leave me writhing in pain. But by the end of my short workout last night, I started to notice my toe was sore for some reason. (And all I did was lift weights, didn’t really do any cardio.) By about 10pm, I noticed that this was no passing/mild pain and I started complaining to my wife (who by now just rolls her eyes at my complaints due to the frequency of my OMIs). By 3am, I decided to just get up for the day because I couldn’t sleep – in too much pain. Ibuprofen didn’t do much. I tried a building a makeshift splint using Q-Tips (I had already eaten the 3 boxes of popsicles we had in the freezer due to a popsicle-dependency issue, so popsicle sticks were out) but this didn’t help. This Q-Tip idea, by the way, is one of those harebrained ideas you get at 3am when you’re beyond tired yet grappling with a pain issue. I sit here now at work quite uncomfortable both from what appears to be a broken toe and also, perhaps, from the Q-Tips sort of poking into the bottom of my foot.

I have an MD appt this afternoon to hopefully confirm whether or not it’s a break. I kind of hope it is so that I can say that my first broken bone was due purely, to an Old Man Injury.

UPDATE:

Went to the MD on Friday and the first thing he ruled out was…gout. I felt positively medieval when he mentioned this as a possibility. But he ruled it out. Then they took an x-ray and ruled out a break. In the end, he thought it was probably a strained tendon or ligament down there. Based on the fact that by yesterday afternoon it looked like I had 2 big toes on the same foot, I’m guessing it may have been more like a tear of some kind. It’s a bit better today but wow, I really have no idea what happened here.

I have to admit, I have a sort of odd interest in some day attending the World Scrabble Championship. Not only do I generally love words – words are great – but I would love to see what the competitors are like. It would be great to interview them and try to understand their motives and how their lives evolved to the point where entering Scrabble competitions was thought to be the next logical step. I would love to learn more about what their family members think of all of this. Would be fascinating.

Remember that? Seemed that every laundry detergent commercial talked about it. I remember some woman narrating and/or being in the commercials saying “ring around the collar” in a deep, raspy, smoker’s voice.

Check out this brief video clip of the talented football prodigy Demias Jimerson. A little league football rule has been instituted to prevent him from scoring more than 3 TDs in a game due to his total dominance.

To me, this is an example of the “wussification of America” (an expression coined I believe by Brother Steve’s colleague Matt Labash – who wrote a hilarious article a few years ago on this very subject). KIDS NEED TO FAIL. It is important for a child’s development to win AND to lose. I hated losing when I was a kid but losing helped teach me how to win. When I was facing a known dominant player in youth sports, I was inspired to try harder and to push myself to do more to help my team. This is how I got better.

This kind of rule will likely have the opposite effect from what is intended. Instead of the kids leaving the field with their self-esteem 100% intact (as the rule makers hope), the kids on the opposing teams will miss out on the chance to challenge themselves against the best while entering the game feeling lame because the rules had to be changed due to their anticipated suckiness.